


Cashier Number Six Turns Out Okay

by Lulannie



Series: Ribs [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, M/M, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, big found family feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 09:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16553102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lulannie/pseuds/Lulannie
Summary: In which Lena Luthor's (very attractive) soulmate is also her supermarket cashier.The third and final instalment, following "Cashier number six, please!" and "I think it might just turn out okay."





	Cashier Number Six Turns Out Okay

**Author's Note:**

> I'd recommend first reading ["Cashier number six, please!"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14562732) and ["I think it might just turn out okay."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14583744) to know what the hell is going on.

Hearing your words, and saying your soulmate's back to them is a magical feeling, everyone always says. But there's no magic for Lena. It's more like math, or physics, or Latin. It's like staring at a locked door for decades, sometimes stumbling across keys that never quite fit, but trying each one anyway. Then, when you least expect it, the metal turns and the pins align and there's a heavy _one-two clunk_ and the equation is solved and the program compiles and you conjugate the verbs and you lift up your bucket to find a perfectly formed sandcastle.

Something like that.

For some time, they just stand there, staring, smiling. Cashier Number Five and his customer cotton on to what's just happened and smile wryly toward the other pair, who are quite oblivious to the growing queue.

Lena snaps out of it first, her eyes drawn to the forgotten wine bottle nestled in glistening glass.

"Can I- Would you-" she stumbles, trailing off when _those bloody eyes_ catch hers again. She dips her head down and screws her eyes closed, "Dinner! Dinner. Would you have dinner with me?"

She hears the pretty cashier's wind-chime laugh.

"I'd love to."

The pretty cashier then starts an incomprehensible series of false-start statements before rushing off, presumably to explain the situation to her boss. Lena loiters by the entrance, anxiously shifting her weight and inadvertently making the automatic door hum open and closed. Her stomach leaps when Cashier Number Six dashes out the back room and skids to a halt, still sporting a breathless grin.

"You had somewhere in mind?"

Lena breaks no fewer than four traffic laws on the way to the restaurant - not due to impatience, but due to the dangerous yet irresistible urge to stare at her pretty cashier until those sunny eyes melt her own and they begin dripping into her shoes. Dinner proceeds in much the same way. Lena, hoodie, jeans, late-night-mascara panda eyes; Cashier Number Six, garish supermarket polo, Birkenstocks, and starlight.

And it's perfect.

-

Lena is a busy woman. Between acquiring Fortune 500 companies and narrowly evading assassination, she doesn't have much spare time. But this doesn't stop Kara. Not much does.

It starts with texts, hand-delivered lunches, and coffee-shop dates. Then it's dinner, and movie night, a kiss on the cheek. Naturally, it doesn't take Lillian long to catch wind of it all, once she pokes her head out from her latest nefarious scheme.

Lena comes home one Wednesday to find her mother stood in her living room, unsubtly sneering at everything in sight. Lena sets her jaw and walks silently past the woman, determined not to give away how her hands already shake, how her spine is already poised to shrink into submission.

"So you found it, then."

Lillian gestures carelessly with one finger toward her own ribs, voice dripping with disdain that pools on the floor. She launches into a tirade that Lena's heard enough times before: soulmates aren't real, Lena, they're a form of societal control, Lena, they hold you back, Lena, everybody dies, Lena.

For the first time, Lena is steadfast. She sits at the kitchen counter and blows softly on her coffee, never once acknowledging the din from the middle of the room. This only angers Lillian more. Her words are molten as she spits and steams, becoming more emphatic as she moves on to discuss Lex. Lex understood, Lex came round to understand the truth, Lex did the right thing.

Lex tried to do the right thing.

Lena stays stoic, even as Lillian's scorn turns to pleading; a near brush of the hand, a You're just going to get hurt too, Lena.

The next morning, at brunch, Kara lets Lena grip her hand like a lifeline, no explanation needed.

-

Things are easier from there. Lillian returns to radio silence and kissing Kara is proven to be addictive. In one moment of heady weakness, Lena acquiesces to a night out with Kara’s family.

So she meets Alex, Maggie and 'J'onn' ("it's, uh, French") and is shitting bricks with nerves. Alex, The Sister, gives nothing away, just stares appraisingly at Lena and gives Kara pointed looks. J'onn is more open, keeping the conversation flowing naturally and sharing a wry smile with Lena when the sisters start a debate about the morality of pizza toppings. And Maggie-- Maggie just plies her with drinks until Lena's prone enough to let slip what the words on her body say. Everyone laughs and the new couple are mocked fiercely for the rest of the night.

And it's perfect.

Other meetings are more tense. Lena meets Clark, the handsome Kansas farm-boy with a heart made of gold and wheat. He doesn't wait long before simply asking, "why?"

Lena doesn't truly know why. She proposes they find out.

-

She kisses Kara chastely outside the prison visitors' room, then locks eyes with Clark.

He nods.

Lex is already waiting, and his eyes follow Lena’s as she slides into the plastic chair. They discuss the weather, and the economy, and stocks and shares and uncomfortable prison beds and too-tight handcuffs and years of warnings and lectures on the dangers of love and the scrubbing of unfamiliar words until the skin bleeds and a thousand nights staring at a concrete ceiling and I’m sorry and I miss you.

And I miss you too.

When Lena reopens the electronic door to let Clark in, Lex looks like he might be sick. She and Kara (ever concerned for Clark’s safety) watch through the one-way glass. Neither man speaks, and it dawns on Lena that they’ve never met - not face-to-face. Never spoken. She sees Clark’s nostrils flare as he heaves breaths, his face cycling through forty different emotions as his eyes stay affixed to the man opposite. She watches Lex’s mouth form an apology. Just one. It sits heavily on the table.

Clark’s breathing slows, and he looks evenly at Lex.

Lena can’t read the words on Clark’s lips. She couldn’t understand them even if she could. But Kara can, and she picks up bits and pieces. She translates them for Lena.

“Hurt…”

“...Safe…”

“...Future.”

-

People always tell you about the first words, but they never tell you about the _burn_.

It’s the soothing warmth high on her abdomen when she brushes her hand against Kara’s, the two of them bundled beneath blankets in front of the TV. It’s the warning prickle when she’s in her office, sensing that any second her girlfriend will storm in, incensed that yet another journalistic position has attempted to twist her into something she’s not. It’s a wild glow when Kara tackles her into a hug, just after signing the by-line of her best article yet.

It’s a fervid heat. Fingers trailing up her back. Breath in her ear. Words pushed up against words. Again, and again and--

-

She’s sure that her mother would be furious if she could see her now.

The dress is simple, considering Lena’s uncompromised budget. It’s white, as per tradition, with the with the ceremonial sash around her ribs. The church is beautiful, the arrangements complete, and the company perfect.

Lena is petrified.

Maggie fusses with Lena’s hair, probably to distract Lena from the glossiness of her own eyes, and whispers emphatically in Spanish. Clark rushes in, glasses askew, holding out his phone.

“For you.”

Lex isn’t technically allowed phone calls, but apparently one of the jailers of cell block four is a romantic. She can hear his grin down the line.

“You know, Mom will be furious.”

Lena laughs outright.

“I know.”

J’onn calls Maggie and Clark back into the corridor, and Lena takes a moment to look at herself. In the mirror, Cat Grant slips through the door with that constant ephemeral grace. She sits, wordlessly re-tying Lena’s sash and tucking a curl behind her ear. She cups Lena’s face and confronts her with a frightening seriousness.

“You look after that girl.”

The music starts up from the main hall, and before Lena can respond she is hurried from the dressing room to the great double doors.

She sees him standing there. He’s cleaned up nicely: a grey suit, a clean shave. His tie matches her sash, and his small, toothy smile matches the sugary nerves spinning in her stomach. He extends his arm for her to take, puffing out his chest proudly as she smiles at him. He looks at her the way a father does, in complete joyful bewilderment at the maturity of a girl grown up.

“Bride on aisle one, please.”

Lena Luthor takes Terrence Greene’s arm, and he walks her down the aisle.

They pass Jack, and Jess, and Winn, gripping his necklace tightly. Maggie, Alex, J’onn, Clark and Lois, James and Lucy. Mary Greene (Terry winks) and Cat and Eliza and Jeremiah and...

_Those bloody eyes._

They laugh breathlessly throughout the entire ceremony. Kara’s hands are sweaty when they hold Lena’s, and joyful sobs force Alex to restart her Best Woman speech twice. Maggie is sick into a toilet when she finds out the hors-d'oeuvres aren’t vegan, Clark and Winn accidentally break the karaoke microphone, J’onn hovers protectively in case of an untimely assassination attempt, and James takes way too many pictures way too close up. Kara’s sash is lost somewhere on the dance-floor, and Lena misses her mouth when she goes in for a kiss.

And it’s perfect.


End file.
